"Perfectly Buoyant" - further chronicling of the tosh

willoughbies.jpeg by John Finnemore

 We had tried all manner of things with "The Willoughbies" in previous series of JFSP, both at sketch try-outs and live recordings: We'd tried it with John as the Dad, with me as the Dad, as a "runner" – catching buses, or winning points for spotting spelling mistakes in a menu – and as a standalone sketch, but they never made it in. And I didn't really get them. I am – as should be clear by now from these posts – a lot slower on the uptake than most listeners, and cold as a stone. Possibly the point was to show a generically happy, Ned-Flanders-type family in a less annoying light, and to let an audience – specifically John's audience – love something more commonly mocked. Posssibly it was less pointed than that; sometimes John just enjoys painting portraits. Anyway, I was surprised how doggedly he kept trying to do something with them.

 

 So when he first mooted over Zoom his plans for Series Nine, and for the family formerly known as Willoughby, I immediately anticipated how out of my depth I might be. This wouldn't be the normal rough trade John gets me to do. I'd need a buoyancy aid. That buoyancy aid turned out to be a fond memory of Jim Broadbent at his most "heigh-ho" augmented with a weak "r", and I clung onto that aid for dear life when recording Jerry's first scene – the restaurant scene from Episode Two. As I said on twitter during the tweetalong: 

 "I reckon it might have been this scene that made me consider giving Jerry that voice. I was worried my own voice might sound a little too punching down. Among other things"

 You know. Bullying. I'm making it sound like it was hard, aren't I. It wasn't hard, of course. I had John's writing to play, John and the rest of the cast to play off, Sue's tunes to sing, and Ed to tell me how much Jerry reminded him of his dad. But this was unlike anything I'd done on the radio before*, Jerry wasn't a character in a sketch, he had a whole series, a series in which I'd also be playing quite a few other roles which we'd have distinguish from him, so whatever voice I used in that first recording of that first scene would have to stick. Fortunately, Jim Broadbent is a very versatile actor. 

 Oh, here's something about that restaurant sketch I didn't know:

 

 

 And this might be my favourite revelation of the week. I've loved Willie Rushton ever since I received a copy of his comic "The Gernaium of Flüt" as a child, and I wish I could find it now. His son in that is called Toby, I think. His dog might be called Toby as well. I sang his praises here, back in 2008. And here he is playing Watson opposite John Cleese's Holmes.

 

 

 

 But he wasn't just the dry, avuncular fantasist of my childhood. Ruhston was there at the beginning of Private Eye and That Was The Week That Was, a stalwart of the sixties' Satire Boom that Jerry fails the audition for in Episode Six. In real life there are people who remind you of people, and I love that Jerry had that, whether I knew it or not. What I remind myself most of in fact, listening to Jerry now, is my childhood friend Tom. He was big fan of Willie Rushton too.

 Here's something great that William Shaw wrote about the series' approach to failure. And here, before I go – because, despite what it says at the top of this post, it's actually New Year's Eve tonight – is another thing John told me about the inspiration for Jerry when we first Zoomed:

 

 

 It goes up to 63, by the way. 

 Series Nine is still being repeated at 11pm on Radio 4, the final episode is tonight, if you have any questions you can post them below, and you can still hear the whole thing any time you like here. (I recognises that, despite all this talk about buoyancy aids, I haven't once mentined the lilo.) Happy New Year, Unattendees!

*(I know I've played Sir Maxwell House over a few series of "The Monster Hunters" {who also taught crows to do tricks}, but Sir Maxwell is a character from a sketch, which might be why the show outgrew him.)